Tag: writing_challenge

But, “think” is too flimsy, and “could” is too theoretical, and love is too loaded. Too nebulous. Too big for me to wrap my arms around, too heavy for me to wrap my mind around, too wild for me to wrap these words around. Because if I loved you in the ways I thought I could, then it would mean digging deep and diving under and doing this thing. With you. See, if I loved you in the ways I thought I could, then it would mean a one-way street to some place we’ve never been without a path back to this place we’ve always known.

But, I think about going to that some place.

I think about that one-way street. I think about leaving this place we’ve always known without the possibility of retracing our steps. And, in the small moments when I let my mind sweep me up and carry me away, I think about forever. About building something together. Because with you it seems so simple. So duh-yes-of-course-why-didn’t-I-think-of-that. It seems like if we were two people who summoned the courage to hold hands, our fingers would fold into one another’s without fumbling.

Except this would not be so simple. At least that is what logic and life and the scars on my heart all tell me. They all tell me that this would be taking our something simple and muddying it. Tangling it. This would be taking something so uncomplicated and foolishly choosing to complicate it.

It wasn’t always this way. What I feel about you ebbs and flows, crashes and burns, dies and gets resurrected again. Because I am a complex woman with 1,000 hearts that all beat at rates I can’t quite understand. I am a woman who falls in and out of love at record speeds. I am a woman who sees possibility in most men’s eyes and can extract meaning from even the most hollow words. Human connection is my drug of choice, and when it comes to you, most days I think I found my best high.

But, then I reel myself back in. I fold myself back up. I return to earth and convince myself that you and I are not the kind of people who walk down one-way streets. You and I are not two people who will hook ourselves to each other just so we can dive under.

Except I know these are all lies. Because I could love you. I could love you in all of the ways I ever imagined loving someone–messy, untamed, wild, beautiful, and complicated.

Xoxo,
Tyece

This post is part of Write Your Ass Off April, a 10-day writing challenge to create your most naked, brave, and no holds barred writing. Ready to do this thing? Learn about the challenge here and share your work on social media using the hashtag #WYAOApril.

“remember,
you were a writer
before
you ever
put
pen to paper.
just because you were not writing
externally.
does not mean you were not writing
internally.”
― Nayyirah Waheed

There are stories that sit behind the brick walls. They shout and bang their knuckles against those barriers, but we’ve learned how to ignore them. Because when we consider what it would mean to tell those stories, we recognize the seismic shift that will happen inside of us and to the world around us. We know that once we tell those stories, we can never, ever go back. We understand the gravity, responsibility, and fragility of sharing those stories. So, instead of telling them, we’ve learned how to push them to the bottom of the barrel. Then those stories become sirens inside of us, demanding to be heard.

This writing challenge is about telling the stories that have become sirens.

This writing challenge is about taking on the responsibility of telling those stories.

This writing challenge is about welcoming the seismic shifts and never, ever going back.

Because that is what writing your ass off is about. Writing your ass off is about meeting vulnerability on the bridge. It’s about digging deep and diving under. It’s about extracting inspiration from all things. Writing your ass off is about pushing yourself and pulling from all of your places. It’s about writing that elevates, evolves, and emancipates you. It’s about reaching your own level. After all, it is your writing and, my love, it is absolutely your ass.

That’s why this challenge is only 10 days. Because that kind of writing–the kind that takes you to the cliff and brings you to your knees–is not the kind of writing you need to do for 30 days straight for it to send waves through your world. So, 10 days. Here we go.

Here’s how it works:

Pick any 10 days in April to write. They don’t have to be 10 consecutive days. Just 10 days.
Use the prompts. You do nothave to do them in order.
Write your heart out.
I’ll share recaps from the challenge every Friday in April on Twenties Unscripted.

The golden rule:

Share your work and follow along using the hashtag #WYAOApril. I am going to dive into all the magic you guys spread during April. And, of course, I will rise to the challenge right here on my blog.

The silver rule:

Include the prompt you’re responding to + a blurb about the writing challenge in your blog posts (something like: “This post is part of Write Your Ass Off April, a Twenties Unscripted 10-Day Writing Challenge #WYAOApril” is beautiful and perfect.)

Your number is still in the bottom of my drawer. Punch these ten numbers and I re-enter war. Erase my progress and go back to who it was before when I would fall to your feet and drop my pride to the floor. Punch these ten numbers and I leave open the door, spit back to a time time when you weren’t mine but I was yours.

I am superwoman. But, you? You are my kryptonite.

You’re still an internal battle I curl my fist daily to fight, still interrupting my sleep and fucking up my nights. Still fueling material I can use to write. Somehow I’m going out of my mind now that you’re out of sight.

I am superwoman. But, you are my kryptonite.

You are poison coursing through my veins, lust is a drug from which I haven’t learned to abstain, love is a socially acceptable form of being insane, so hand me that straitjacket. I need to be detained. Chained or constrained because only a masochist could get this much pleasure from this much pain.

I am superwoman. But you are my kryptonite.

You bring my insides to a flame, bring my logic to shame, so I’m a prisoner of my own mind games, unsure of who I became. Because you are the kind of attraction that is filled with 1,000 watts. This is the kind of attachment that could survive high caliber gunshots. So it should be my immune reaction to walk away from this dying plot. There is dwindling satisfaction left in the memory of everything we are not.

I am superwoman. But you are my kryptonite.

You make it feel good, almost great, to sin. To detach from my world and tune in to your skin. Somehow, you are the pain, yet you also make it subside as I gladly subscribe to this roller coaster ride. Because the lows are lows but the highs are so damn high. Mountains growing in between us but I ignore the divide, my insides are unraveled but I ignore that I’m untied. My heart a barely breathing organ, but I ignore that I have died.

Because I am superowman. But you are my kryptonite.

You feel bad and good and wrong and right. So each time I walk away, we somehow reunite. Because you feel bad and good and right and wrong. I am superwoman but with you, I never stood a chance at being strong. You feel bad and good and wrong and right. I am ignoring the flashing red lights that are within plain sight. You feel bad and good and right and wrong. You’re a hurricane tearing up my life, and I welcomed natural diaster all along. Because you feel bad and good and wrong and right. You feel bad and good and wrong and right. You feel bad and good and wrong and right.

Today kicks off the From A Wildflower and Twenties Unscripted February Writing Challenge. In the name of honesty, I should tell you I wasn’t quite sold on doing a writing challenge this month. Aside from my day job and blogging nightime life, I’m in the last four weeks of planning and producing my first art and performance showcase. So, tired is an understatement. I know; isn’t this such an optimistic start to the challenge?

But, I did a writing challenge back in August and even though I was exhausted and close to hurling my laptop out the window by the end of the month, I felt good. There’s something vainly fulfilling about saying that you wrote every day for 30 or 31 (or, in this case, 28) consecutive days. And, if anything else, it makes you appreciate the breaks you take from writing to unwind and trap new inspiration. The beauty of this month’s challenge is that we’re not being asked to produce 500-700 words the way I usually do when I write. There are short pieces, poems and even visuals built in to the month.

In fact, today’s topic called for us to do an “About Me” in a creative way. So, I decided to spend an evening surrounded by a bunch of my magazines cutting out words from them that I thought represented me–who I am, where I’ve been and where I’m going. I also think this collage will serve as my 2014 vision board.

There are two quotes on the photo that are a bit tough to see, so I’ll type them out:

“What I like about young people is the potential is there but not developed yet. In a way, they’re sort of abstract.”

“I think people think I’m harder and more arrogant and cocky than I am because I know how to put on a front, but it’s nothing like who I am inside. To be honest, I’m really, overly, scarily sensitive.”

If your mental stamina hasn’t run out yet, consider joining the challenge. And, be sure to tweet me at @tyunscripted and my wonderful wildflower crew at @fromawildflower when you post. And use the hashtag #wildflowersunscripted. Don’t worry; we won’t crucify you if you miss some days. Well, at least I don’t think we will. That wasn’t part of the deal when we set this up.